Minnie Driver admits being told she wasn't sexy enough for “Good Will Hunting” was “devastating”.
The 52-year-old actress starred opposite Robin Williams, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as Skylar in the classic 1997 drama, but a producer's comments about her suitability for the role brought back some insecurities.
She told The Cut: “It was devastating. To be told at 26 that you’re not sexy when you maybe just got over all your teenage angst, and started to think, you know, maybe in the right light and the right shoes and the right dress, I’m all right.”
Driver revealed how her “lovely family” helped her cope, and their support stopped the incident from being “way more damaging than it was”.
She explained: “I certainly had insecurities growing up. That I was not gorgeous. I was not super pretty. The idea that that was the currency I was then meant to pursue, and I was meant to try and find ways of making myself prettier.
“I thank God that I didn’t do a ton of stuff that I could have then gone and done … It could have been way more damaging than it was.
“I had such a lovely family going, ‘F*** that. You’re gorgeous on all these levels. And if one person doesn’t think that you’re pretty enough, f*** it.’ ”
She also called out the unnamed producer for being dismissive with their assessment, and claimed Hollywood had not grown in that sense.
She said: “When a producer — a man or woman or non-binary person — distils an actor down to what they perceive as their sexiness, it’s so dismissive of that person.
“And by the way, that is something that has not changed — there are still just times when people are like 'she’s too old’ or ‘she’s too tall’.
“I’ve always thought about how things get distilled. There’s this notion of one part of you being ‘the thing’ that will block all these other aspects of who you are. That’s a huge frustration as an actor.”